Since the earliest of days in the application of skin coverings for load carrying structure, especially in the art of airplane construction, those skilled in the art have sought for fasteners that would accommodate shear and tensile loading between skin and its substructure.
In the prior art, one can observe U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,504,817; 1,519,772; 1,901,864; 2,053,048; 2,161,802 and 2,483,916 as examples of how one can use stitching to fasten a skin to a substructure. In these, one is taught to use an intermediate tape or the like that is attached to such substructure and the skin is fastened to the tape by stitching.
Those skilled in the art today have, however, come to rely on mechanical fasteners. They have become so dependent upon such that it is unheard of to attempt any other form of fastening. To follow this practice in composite structure fastening drives the cost of final assembly upwards because of special drilling and reinforcement requirements and the use of fasteners made from more expensive materials to prevent serious corrosion problems in service.
Nevertheless, the present day fastener fraternity, when asked to study assembly of new materials, consider it to be revolutionary to address the problem of composite structure assembly with other than today's conventional, mechanical fasteners or bonding techniques. Therefore, it is the intent of this disclosure to teach such skilled in the art how to take a leaf from the past and improve upon it so as to avoid expensive techniques that are not-required.